So, last night I went out and picked up a bunch of stuff for my new little guy, Fiyero. Yes, he's named after the man in the book, Wicked. He was looking pretty gloomy for the past few days (he has ich... today was his last day of meds, but I'm going to put in an extra two days, just to be absolutely sure), and I bought him a new filter and heater. I put in the new stuff and he's seeming a lot more energetic now.

I turned off his light for a little bit to test out an airstone for a different tank (limited outlets, yay. =P ), and when I turned it back on, I found two horizontal black bars on his sides. I know that these are signs of stress or fright, but I'm wondering how serious it is when the bars actually show up. Gregory has never showed any bars before, so this is completely new to me.

I think it may have been the filter that is stressing him out. His tank is fairly bare because he has ich, but he has a lighthouse to hide in. Apparently overnight, he tried to get away from the current of the filter (which is really low... Gregory doesn't seem to mind it at all) by lying on top of the filter. Unfortunately, the filter is close to the top of the tank. Close enough to the top for his right eye and fins to be exposed if he were to try to lie on top of it sideways.

Now his poor eye and fins look all dried out. He doesn't seem to be able to see out of either eye. He would touch his lighthouse and seem to get scared and swim away. I moved his filter and tried to get him to go into his lighthouse by using the net, but he tried to swim into the net instead of his lighthouse. He seems to be blind.

Is your tank cycled? If not, maybe try turning the filter off when you aren't close by. This is what I have to do for my male. He has very long fins that make him a pretty weak swimmer. The filters on a very low setting, but he still struggles.

I'll have to turn the filter off then. I was terrified that the little guy wouldn't make it through the day while I was out. He seemed to be having a pretty rough day, and looked much like he was hyperventilating on the bottom. I don't think he has ammonia or nitrite poisoning since I've been pretty good about water changes since he got sick, but I think he was just really freaked out.